Laravel .env variable always returns null

Question

I added this variable to .env file

STRIPE_SECRET=a12345

I would like to dump the variable using routes/web.php

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Answer 1

The main reason upon your issue is that you are caching your configuration. When running php artisan config:cache you're storing your configuration in your cache, and the next time Laravel will boot up it won't read the .env file because it detects that the configuration has been stored in the cache. Environment file should be used only to setup configuration files and then to access the value you're looking for you should use ONLY the config method.

Let's assume that you have the file config/stripe.php that consists of this content:

<?php

return [
    'secret' => env('STRIPE_SECRET', '')
];

Once you run php artisan config:cache access this value using ONLY the syntax config('stripe.secret') through your application code. Every time you update your config files and your .env you need to run php artisan config:cache again.